Facebook is freaking me out

I wouldn't say I have a suspicious mind. I now realize that person who was following me in the Chevvy Cobalt tonight may not have been specifically tailing me. He was behind me for four miles, though. He turned left when I turned left. He turned right when I turned right. He was wearing shades on a cloudy day. His face was partially obsured but I swear it was the face of a serial killer.

My suspicion that he was following me was alleviated slightly when I turned off the interstate and he kept going. Or maybe this was a ruse to make me think he wasn't following me.

Then I got a bit freaked out at the mail box. Someone was loitering behind me as I unlocked my box. I could feel the hairs on my back standing on end.

I turned and an elderly lady smiled at me. I wasn't fooled. Oh no. I was acutely aware of bizarre story of the elderly Caucasian man who was rumbled by airline officials in Canada who discovered he was a young Asian man.

Now I assume most elderly people are really teeagers. "Don't be fooled by how slowly they move," I'll tell anyone who cares to listen. "Most of them are drug dealers, disguised as old prunes." Tell them loudly you know their real identity and they'll jump out of the blocks like Carl Lewis on acid.

I gave the elderly lady an oblique look because I was starting to wonder if she was really the man who was following me in the Cobalt. I glanced at the parking lot and sure enough a Cobalt was parked nearby.

I retreated to my home only to find out I was being stalked on the internet. A man called Mr Godogo from Nigeria was offering to put $1 million in my bank account. I know bad things happen in Nigeria and this guy had my number. Well my email address at least.

But the most stark evidence I am being stalked came from Facebook, which I am told is some kind of networking site. I don't use it much owing to my cautious nature. Fifty visits a day is quite enough, thank you very much.

I'm most freaked out by the "People you know" section down the right hand side of the screen. How the hell does Facebook know that I know them? Or rather knew them. Clearly there's an operation going on here like the one the British ran from Dublin Castle in the early 20th Century when a network of informers kept the Irish in their place.

How else can I explain the fact this site regularly produces a picture of my mother-in-law, my ex-wife, the estate agent in England who defrauded me of 1000 sterling and the tenant who refused to leave our rental home, leaving us with a bill of a further 1000 sterling and all this after I had generously donated my bicycle to her, on the understanding she paid for a second wheel.

We live in sinister and troubling times my friends and social networking is as incidious as the bugs the Soviets used to place in hotel rooms of diplomats visiting Moscow.

I must end this post now to get some more medication from Walgreens but hold onto that thought....